The 1992 Los Angeles riots were a series of riots, lootings and arsons that occurred from 29 April – 4 May. The unrest began after the acquittal of four officers from the Los Angeles Police Department who were involved in the brutal beating and arrest of African American taxi driver, Rodney King. The riots began after footage of the incident was broadcast and widely viewed on television resulting in the most destructive civil disturbance in America’s history, totalling in over a billion dollars of damage.

“For many, it was the first time they were publicly confronted with the possibility of widespread brutality and racism in police departments,” explains Los Angeles-based design studio, Folder Studio. “For those living with that reality, it was validation of their feelings of injustice towards the police,” it continues, “we’ve seen history repeat itself in 2012 with the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case, and in the past six years, many more similar cases have surfaced. Revisiting the footage from 1992, it becomes clear just how little has changed, putting a spotlight on our lack of progress and desensitisation to societal trauma,” remarks Folder Studio in regards to its project, K-Town ’92.

Folder Studio, Grace Lee and Eurie Chung: K-Town ’92

Folder Studio, Grace Lee and Eurie Chung: K-Town ’92

K-Town ’92 is an online documentary that explores the impact and legacy of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising. The film reveals loose connections between various minority experiences, accentuating the similarities and differences in their shared experience. Folder, who previously created an evolving archive documenting the life of 2Pac, were approached by the film’s director, Grace Lee, and its producer, Eurie Chung.

“The pair had been cultivating the project for a year before our introduction, interviewing subjects and gathering footage, working to differentiate their project from a number of other documentaries that were also coming out on the 25th anniversary [in 2017],” the studio recalls. The documentary focusses on Los Angeles’ Koreatown as it was the first neighbourhood to go up in flames, leading to a situation which saw Asian Americans in the middle of myriad racial and economic tensions.

Folder Studio, Grace Lee and Eurie Chung: K-Town ’92

Folder Studio, Grace Lee and Eurie Chung: K-Town ’92

At the time, Koreans Americans were thriving and starting to maintain businesses which created a myth among disenfranchised communities that Korean immigrants were receiving subsidies and were somehow favoured by the government. The situation worsened after Latasha Harlins, a 15-year old African American was shot in the back by Soon Ja Du, a Korean American store owner, over a bottle of orange juice. Folder Studio explains how, “Du’s light probation sentence, along with the acquittals in the Rodney King case, set off the riots with much anger directed towards Koreans. For us, these incidents perfectly demonstrate the issue with the model minority stereotype and the consequences of western society’s export of the fear of black and brown people.”

Starting with the premise, “Who gets to tell the story?” K-Town ’92 juxtaposes interviews and footage from 1992 with Grace’s interviews from 2017. Taking advantage of the duality in the footage, it allows news reports to provide context to interviews and vice-versa. By including multiple perspectives on a single frame, K-Town ’92 allows chance and choice to play a significant role in how viewers form opinions and understanding of the event. This format allowed the studio to bypass a forced narrative and “instead let people come to their own conclusions”. Visitors to the site are free to move around and pay attention to what they’re interested in, “potentially coming away with very different understandings of the situation depending on what they chose to watch,” it concludes.

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When 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered on 10 May 1968 – 50 years ago today – it somehow captured the imagination of its viewers: an audience who was yet to experience footage of the moon landing over a year later. Packed full of lengthy sequences and free from dialogue or even sound, its imagery, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is tranquil to the point of being static at times. This combined with its understandably puzzling ending meant the film received mixed reviews from critics upon its release. Despite this, it quickly garnered a ferocious cult following and became the highest grossing film of that year: the only Kubrick motion picture to hold this status.

Following on from Duncan Cowles’ brilliant Taking Stock film at the end of last year, the director is back with a new film which again uses generic stock footage to piece together a very relatable narrative. Where Taking Stock touched a nerve with freelance creatives through Duncan’s own tale of trying to make a side hustle from selling stock footage online with little financial success, It’s Not Amazing Enough, commissioned by Ted, explores the panicky feeling of worrying your work might not quite be up to scratch.

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Peau de Chagrin / Bleu de Nuit follows a bride and groom during the hours leading up to their wedding. Baloji avoids a linear narrative, creating instead a series of metaphorical images that condense fleeting impressions into unsettling emotions. “Many shots depict an absent partner, which implies that one of them has gone back on their promises; changed their mind. The film illustrates this allegorically, showing the two protagonists alone in their wedding finery in front of the ceremonial installations. The backdrops become clearer as the cloud of yellowish smoke dissipates,” Baloji explains. These wedding frames, seeped as they are in vegetal embellishments, construct a theatrical stage that allows Baloji to play out his symbolic tales of love, lust and eventual apathy.

The hand-crafted masks worn by the characters throughout the film further highlight Baloji’s desired dramatic effect. As the figures wait in vain, “the masks come to represent the love that becomes a ghost. In this way, the masks separate the symbolically-charged waiting shots from the more figurative parts of the video,” Baloji says. This contrast is made all the more poignant by the intricately decorated wooden backdrops, which draw on Pygmy culture and its visually rich wedding rituals; “the installations are historically used as altars for wedding ceremonies,” the artist explains. In drawing on a long-established tradition, Baloji emphasises the pain felt by the lonesome character waiting at the altar and transforms a conventionally celebratory occasion into a harrowing betrayal.

Peau de Chagrin / Bleu de Nuit is an aesthetic triumph; vibrant, atmospheric and undeniably compelling. When asked how the final outcome compares to his initial visions, Baloji admits that “it’s pretty close. We just didn’t have time to shoot everything. I made sure to be extremely prepared since the budget was very low. I knew the whole shooting list by heart, which meant we could focus our attention on the acting on set.”

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Illustration fanatics are more than familiar with the work of Robert Rubbish. London dwellers will be familiar with the sight of him too. Usually found in Soho he can be spotted in the cafes and pubs populated by a unique community, who in an area of consistent gentrification manage to hold on to its inclusive and historic personality.

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